SP2M Day 6 – Muscatine, IA to Moline, IL

After two days of cold, grey skies and headwinds, I was singing out loud as I headed northeast out of Muscatine to mostly sunny skies and calm winds. Nothing could possibly go wrong on a day as perfect as this. Temps were cool as I left the hotel but forecast to warm up promptly.

I learned, while riding through southwestern Illinois, that cows are generally interested in passing bicyclists though they have nothing to say when I talk to them. Horses couldn’t care less about me. I do talk to all of the livestock because, well, just because. On this day, I also found a steely-eyed llama. Like the cows, it had nothing to say but at least is was willing to pose for a selfie with me.

After the llama gave me leave to ride on, I headed for the Pine Creek Grist Mill. I had seen it on the map so figured I would stop by to peer at an old decrepit building. I seriously underestimated this site. It is a beautifully restored, fully functional grist mill from 1838.

The grist mill is the only grist mill, of roughly 500 in Iowa, that still exists. Not only does it exist, it is the original, restored mill, not a reconstruction. Somehow it survived the world wars (the metal was never scavenged), floods, and the ravages of time. I had never given much thought to mills, assuming that they were just a water-driven shaft turning a millstone. I never considered the complex machinery required to store and move the grain, and then move and store the flour and by-products. Take a look at this one photo showing part of two of the mills inside the building.

The complexity reminded me of a steam locomotive, except this was largely made out of wood instead of iron and steel. Even more impressive, this whole mill can operate either from its water wheel or from its steam engine.

Here is a close up of one gear and chain, illustrating the beautiful restoration work and signage.

As far as I could tell, this bit of construction is contemporary. Don’t be fooled by its vintage style.

Just east of Buffalo, IA, I ran across a yellow kindred spirit of my yellow pannier festooned bicycle. In case the capacity of the Komatsu HD325 doesn’t leap immediately to mind (I had to ask the driver), this little dump truck hauls 40 tons!

Shortly after my encounter with the dump truck, the MRT turned off the main road and down to a smaller road nearer to the Mississippi River. It was kind of startling to see a barge tilting this much as it was loaded but I presume the folks working with it knew what they were doing.

From there the road was picturesque and infused with eau de flood. I watched a pickup truck drive toward me through water over the road. It looked pretty deep, since its wheels were pushing quite the wall of water in front of them. I waved the driver down to ask him about it. He assured me that it was only three or four inches deep, easy enough to ride through. I pedaled on and found that he was right. No sweat.

Back on dry land, I kept going. About a quarter mile farther along, I found more flooding. This turned about to be deeper, up to my axles. Riding through that was fine. I just had to pedal harder and not mind wet shoes. (I ride in hiking shoes, so they dry quickly.) Another quarter mile down the road, I found a third flooded area. This was so long that I could not see dry pavement on the far side. That was more than I was willing to venture so I backtracked to the big street, Rockingham Rd., and followed that all the way into Davenport.

Rockingham Rd. led me straight to a misadventure that consumed the rest of the afternoon.

Easy peasy, I figured. I was carrying a spare inner tube and a patch kit. I would swap the tube and then patch the holey one when I got to my air conditioned hotel room.

Man plans. God laughs.

Swapping the tube was easy. Then came the job of pumping it up to 50 PSI or so. I have a nice Lezyne high volume pump. It should have been easy. After way too much pumping, I was not making any progress. I pulled the tube out of the tire and tried to inflate it outside the tire. Guess what; it would not hold air. You don’t want to know what I said then.

I grabbed the other tube and the patch kit and set about a) finding the hole (because I was an idiot and had not marked the spot), and b) patching the hole. This was my first time patching an inner tube so it took some trial and error (three trials, two errors) before I finally used enough cement for the patch to hold. Once patched, pumping the tube up was pretty straightforward. Then I just had to repack my panniers and was on my way.

I headed to Ruby’s Davenport, a combination bar and bike shop, just 1.5 miles away. They did not have a new inner tube for me but I was able to bring my rear tire fully up to pressure. They also told me that inner tubes die after a couple of years, even if stored in a tool bag as a spare and never used. Now I know that. I wish I had known it before leaving St. Louis! I also got directions to Wright Cycles in Moline, IL, where Dave had the tube that I needed. He also showed me his latest frame that he is custom building. Can you spell b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l work? Sure you can.

The bridge from Davenport to Rock Island is a noisy affair, all steel with lots of vehicular traffic on the left and lots of pedestrian and bike traffic on the right. Catching this shot with an empty pedestrian path took much patience.

That roller dam on the right, is the largest in the world, by the way.

To be continued